


Eyes On You

by allmystars



Series: Suptober 2019 [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cussing, Dubious Ethics, Human Experimentation, Limited Human Contact, M/M, Prisoners, Sleep Deprivation, Solitary Confinement, mild insanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-12-07 21:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20982305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allmystars/pseuds/allmystars
Summary: Dean and Castiel are both prisoners who agree to take part in a study on the ethics of solitary confinement by giving them limited contact with another person for a span of two months.They find it to be, well, unethical.





	Eyes On You

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2 of Suptober - Eyes.

Dean looks around the small, cell-like room that he’ll call _home_ for the next two months. It’s not too different from his usual cell in Douglas County Jail, with its single bed, small toilet and sink, heavy door, and a slot for a food tray. This one is all white, though, unlike the dark greys of his little slice of hell. Dean thinks that, with time, this could be worse.

Somehow he landed himself in a human behavior study, testing how lowlifes like himself react to limited human contact for a set amount of time—something about testing the ethics of solitary confinement. Dean doesn’t really know, and he doesn’t give a fuck, either. He’s getting paid a hundred bucks a day for this shit, and it’s not like human contact is something he relishes, anyway. Not with the likes of his fellow inmates, that is.

He’s not sure what _limited _means, though. Like, with the person bringing him food? Does someone come to talk his ear off once in a while? Obviously, he won’t be leaving the cell—he is a prisoner, after all, and this isn’t exactly a top-security facility.

He flops down on the bed, feeling the metal bars through the thin mattress as he shifts to get comfortable. _Great_, he thinks, scowling. _Just what I need—a bad back._

He doesn’t know how long he lies there for, but he must doze off for a bit before he’s woken with a start by the sound of a tinny, crackling voice in the top corner of the cell. His eyes catch on a little speaker he hadn’t noticed before, and he sits up, listening more closely.

“…_The trial will commence in five, four, three, two, one…_” The voice cuts off and Dean berates himself for not listening to the beginning of the announcement. He sits up in bed, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands. God, he’s tired. Traveling all day really takes it out of a guy

Dean yawns, standing to stretch and shaking out his arms and legs to try and relieve some tension from his stiff muscles. When he opens his eyes, he finds another pair staring back at him that is decidedly _not _his own.

His heart stops, stutters, skips a few beats, before ramping up into high gear when he realizes that a panel has opened up between his room and the room next to his, only wide enough to show a pair of eyes. There’s a speaker beside the opening, and Dean can hear a deep, gravelly voice calling out.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” Dean takes a few steps closer. How can the guy not see him? He’s _right _in front of the panel, for fuck’s sake.

“Uh, yeah? Dude, I’m right here.” Dean sits on the little stool in front of the panel so that his eyes line up with it, and he sees the other guy’s eyes go wide before squinting.

“It’s…the panel doesn’t show anything until you’re right up close. I can see you now.” Dean blinks at the voice filling his ears. At first, he had thought it was just the speaker making it so deep and gravelly, but this close, he can hear it perfectly clear, and there’s a richness to it—like dark chocolate—not that Dean would ever admit to thinking something like that.

“Oh. Huh…” Dean pauses, not sure what to says as the blue eyes staring back into his blink, long, dark lashes fluttering. “I’m, uh—I’m Dean, by the way,” he finally gets out, blushing at the stutter, and he’s thankful the guy can’t see it.

“Castiel,” the other guy says, and there’s a smile in his eyes—in the crinkles at the corners like crows feet. Dean decides then and there that he really, _really _likes blue eyes.

They chat for a bit, talking about nothing in particular before both deciding they’re done with this exercise in human contact.

Dean lounges on his bed or a while after that and his mind wanders to Castiel’s eyes. Do they really have that many different shades of blue? Dean thought he counted six, but there could be more. He’ll just have to pay better attention next time—he finds himself smiling just thinking about it.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dean says, shaking his head as a smile splits his face in two. “You’re in the slammer for streaking on holy ground? That’s insane!”

Castiel’s deep, rumbling laugh flows over him as Dean watches his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Not quite,” he says, and his eyes roll upward as he thinks. “It was a Sunday, about noon—”

“Oh, God,” Dean moans.

Castiel chuckles. “I was a little drunk and there might have been some defacement of property involved. Anyway, the judge is a hardcore Christian and didn’t see the same humor in it that I did.” Dean can almost picture his shoulders lifting in a shrug, and he finds himself wishing this little panel showed more than the eyes.

He and Castiel had, of course, tested it, and found that the _only _thing it shows is eyes. They’d even described the other’s eyes to make sure it wasn’t just a projection.

“What’d _you_ do?” Castiel asks, snapping Dean out of his thoughts.

Dean scratches at the back of his neck, feeling a flush rise on his skin. “Uh, a few things.” He swallows hard, and he’s not sure why he’s so ashamed of it now—he never had been before, since the reason he did what he did was for Sammy. So Sammy could eat, sleep in a bed, and go to school. “Drug trafficking, mostly, but there were some weapons charges and an illegal-fight charge.” He shrugs, trying to play it off, but unease crawls up his spine. “But, uh…what they caught me on,” he chuckles softly, but there’s no humor in it. “They brought me in on prostitution.”

“You paid for a prostitute?” Castiel blurts, bis surprise clear in his voice.

“I _was _the prostitute. These pretty green eyes can bring in a lot of business, you know?” He bats his eyelashes, trying his hardest to lighten the mood, and it seems to work as Castiel’s laughter dances across his skin, raising goose-bumps in their wake.

“Yes, I can see that.”

Dean’s whole body flushes hot as he stares into Castiel’s eyes. He wonders what exactly Castiel means by that, and he opens his mouth to ask, but the panel snaps shut before he can form the words, the speaker going silent with it.

Dean sits there for a moment, left far more bereft than he should be. He lifts his hand and knocks on the wall, but gets no response, so he wanders back to his bed and picks at the food he had forgotten when the panel snapped open.

Dean doesn’t know what time it is, but the lights are off and everything is silent. Not that it’s ever loud, but right now it’s so quiet he can hear his heart beating. It’s driving him crazy—it’s _all _driving him cray—and, as he paces the ten-foot by ten-foot cell, he tries to calculate how long he’s been in here, but the days all blend together into a whirl of food and sleep and _Cas_.

It has to have been at least a couple weeks, and he thinks the panel opens once a day, but it’s been opening less and less frequently and for less and less time.

So, now he paces or sits on the stool. He doesn’t sleep much, and his food sits on a tray in the corner, untouched, as his stomach twists in knots. Eventually, though, the lights flick on and he’s back on the stool, staring hard at the closed panel for hours. Another tray of food comes, and the old one is taken away, but he ignores it until it’s taken away, too.

The panel snaps open and Dean’s whole body sighs as he’s met with a bright blue gaze. His forehead hits the wall as he relaxes. Castiel’s eyes are rimmed with dark circles, and there are heavy bags beneath them—he looks like he hasn’t slept, either, but his eyes crinkle with a smile.

“Heya, Cas,” Dean breathes, wishing, not for the first time, that he could see all of him. They’ve gotten so close over the last couple weeks. Dean guesses that’s what happens when there’s only one person to talk to for any extended period of time, but this is different. Dean _genuinely _likes Castiel. He thinks they would be friends in the real world—or, perhaps more.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel sighs, and Dean can’t help the way he presses his finger to the wall like if he only tries hard enough, he’ll be able to break through to the other side—to see, and touch, and _be _with Castiel. “How did you sleep?”

“Didn’t. You?”

“The same.”

Silence swells between them, but it’s no more uncomfortable than their daily lives are. Honestly, Dean’s too exhausted to talk, so he stares and stares and stares into the blue depths of Castiel’s eyes. Eyes that he could look into forever—that he could memorize for years and still find something new.

“Dean?” Castiel says after a few minutes.

“Hm?”

“I don’t think…” He stops and clears his throat, and Dean can hear the tremble in his voice no matter how hard he tries to hide it. “I can’t do it. I just…I’m not sleeping, and the quiet is so _loud_,” he whispers, and Dean feels his pain like a knife to the chest. “I just want this to stop. I want to go back to my cell, and the grounds—I want to go back to _people_.”

Dean thinks about this—about going back to Douglas County Jail and never seeing or hearing from Castiel again—and he finds that he’s completely torn in two. “You know, I get that, but…” He trails off, not sure if he can say the words floating around inside him. He pushes on anyway. Castiel is the only person he has in the world right now, so he’ll be damned if he doesn’t talk to him. “I don’t want to never talk to you again.”

Castiel blinks a few times before speaking, and his eyes narrow slightly with every second that passes. “I would rather get out of here,” Castiel says, his eyes flicking away for a moment. “I don’t…Dean, I can’t—I _can’t_ need you—”

Then, his eyes are gone, and Dean panics. “Cas? Cas, are you there? Cas!” The panel isn’t _closed_ so where is he? Dean can see the fuzzy blur of not-quite-white, and he can hear the low hum of movement on the other side, but he gets no answer. “Cas, please? Just…just come back, okay? I’m sorry for what I said, okay? Come back—” The panel snaps shut.

Dean sits there for who knows how long, trying to get his heart rate under control, but having no luck as his breathing ramps up to a dangerous level. Something akin to loss punches him in the gut and tears sting his eyes as loneliness sends him to his knees. He curls up on the floor beside the panel. He just wants to sleep—he just wants to _die_.

Castiel doesn’t come to the panel again—not for a long time—and Dean finds himself itching for any form of human contact. He practically lunges at the door when his food is delivered, begging for the person on the other side to stay and chat. They never answer him—never even acknowledge that he’s there—but he pleads with them all the same.

Sometimes he just sits at the panel, and when it flips open, he talks to Cas. He tells him all about his life and asks about his, though he never gets an answer. He misses his best friend and, more than anything, he wants to hear his voice. He wants to know there’s someone on the other side of this open window and he wants to know that they _care _about him and his suffering.

He hasn’t slept properly in almost two weeks now, and sometimes he can’t tell what’s real. Occasionally, he’ll glance at the space where the panel is, and he thinks he might catch a glimpse of blue eyes, but they’re never really there.

Dean knows he’s bound to reach a breaking point, and he knows it’s not too far off, but he just hopes they get out of here before that happens.

Cas has to show up this time. _He has to, he has to, he has to._ Dean doesn’t know what he’ll do if Cas doesn’t. He stares at the panel, knowing it should be opening soon. His hands shake and his eyes sting from exhaustion, but still, he doesn’t blink. A cold sweat trickles down his spine as his stomach twists in knots. _Come on, come on, come on._

Then, it snaps open and…nothing.

Dean searches the white space, but there’s _nothing_, and something inside him snaps. He suddenly just _can’t take _the loneliness as everything builds up inside him—a hole widens in his chest—and he _screams_.

Somehow, he finds himself on the floor, his throat raw, and screaming. Pain ripples through him as the overwhelming _loneliness_ he’s felt for the last month crashes down on him and he can’t take it anymore. He can’t…he doesn’t…it _hurts_.

Somewhere far from him, he hears his name being called. He doesn’t know where from, or who the voice belongs to, but he can _hear it_.

“_Dean? Dean! Dean, it’s okay; I’m here, okay? Come—come look at me! Dean, I’m here._” Dean’s screaming doesn’t stop—he’s too far gone for that—but he holds onto the words for as long as he can.

_ I’m here, I’m here, I’m here._

Two hours later, the study is canceled.

Dean is found, shaking and crying, on the floor of his cell. He’s hauled to his feet, and he knows he smells, and probably looks a little unhinged—hell, he _feels _unhinged—but the physical contact with other people has him breaking into tears. He never wants to feel this way again—ever—but, more than anything, he wants to see _Cas_.

He’s led from his room, shackled in the same way he was when he was brought here, but he moves much slower now, his whole body weighed down by exhaustion. When he steps through the door into a corridor he remembers vaguely from over a month ago, another prisoner is being led from the room next to Dean’s. He looks about as bad as Dean feels, but there’s something about him—something…

Then Dean sees his eyes—eyes he’d know _anywhere_.

“Cas?” His voice breaks on the name, and Castiel turns to him, his icy eyes turning desperate as he tries to take a step closer.

“Dean,” he breathes, before jerking to a halt when a guard tugs on his chains.

Dean tries to take his own step forward. He just needs to touch him, if only _once_, but he finds his hands jerked back as well.

“What’re you doing?” Dean looks at the guards. “Let me see him.” He tries again, but he’s tugged back harder.

“Watch it, Winchester,” one of them rumbles the warning.

Dean growls, turning a glare on the men holding Cas back. “Let me…see him.” His voice is too pleading to be threatening, but he can’t help it. Castiel is the only person he’s had for the last month, and he’ll be damned if he’s never allowed to talk face to face.

“Let them.” Dean’s eyes snap to the suited man walking down the hall, holding a file folder and texting away on his phone. There’s a frazzled look to him, and he looks almost scared, but Dean doesn’t really care. “There’s no harm in it.”

Dean doesn’t even have time to thank the man before he’s being let go, and Castiel is in his face. He feels something loosen in his chest as those beautiful blue eyes fill his vision once more, but it’s better this time. He can _touch _this time, and he does.

He places both hands on either side of Castiel’s face—feels stubble beneath his fingers as the warmth of skin on skin contact settle the mayhem inside him. Dean breathes him in as Castiel’s hands rest on his hips, and he watches those eyes, which had been his only companion for far too long.

“Hey,” he whispers, a small smile turning up his lips.

“Hello,” Castiel whispers back.

**Author's Note:**

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